Page 32 of Her Forbidden Bargain

“Why wouldn’t that work?”

“Because I need you in the New York office,” he said. He wasn’t giving her up. She was one of the only two assistants he’d ever had that didn’t annoy him and actually made him want to go into the office, Lucille being the other.

“I’m still not following why you came up with this solution,” she said. She wasn’t belligerent or demanding, which he would have brushed aside.

“The only thing that will get the press off your back is if we take control of what they are covering. A wedding is the kind of thing they eat up.”

She tipped her head to the side and gave him a long, level stare. “So, we’re getting married?”

“No, just planning a wedding.”

She shook her head. “Do I seem that desperate to you?”

“No, you don’t seem desperate.”

“Well, then why do you think I’d settle for being your pretend fiancée?”

“Because you aren’t going to be able to stay here at my parents’ house the way I’d hoped. And your home in Brooklyn isn’t going to offer you any protection from the paparazzi. They’ll follow you from the second you leave until the moment you return. Are you ready to deal with that on your own?”

She shook her head and then turned away from him. He let her have a moment of privacy, but he could sense her weakening and he’d already decided this was best for both of them.

And he wasn’t backing down. Sheri was going to be standing in his parents’ den really soon, toasting their engagement with a smile that would convince the world that they were the real deal.

He went over to her, touching her shoulders. How he’d never noticed her before last night still amazed him. She had an incredible body. He lowered his head, dropping a soft nibbling kiss against the back of her neck. He ran his hands down her arms and drew her back against his body.

“I want what’s best for you, ma petite,” he said, unable to resist kissing her collarbone.

Her skin tasted faintly sweet, something he’d never noticed in a woman before. But she tasted good to him. And he brushed his tongue against her smooth skin to take a little more of that taste into his mouth.

She shivered in his arms, arching against him, tipping her head back against his shoulder. Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him. So very wide and vulnerable.

Her mouth trembled and he knew she was on the cusp of giving in to him. He leaned down and kissed her. Not softly, but with all the passion inside of him. He kissed her like a man who was hungry for his woman and wanted everything that she had to give.

He broke the kiss only when he needed to breathe and immediately came back to her again, sucking her lower lip into his mouth and drawing on it. She moaned and turned in his arms until he felt the curve of her breast brush his upper arm. Her nipple was hard; he felt it through the fabric of her maillot.

He felt a twinge of conscience at pushing her now. But in the end, he knew what he had to do to take care of her. This was all that was in his control.

“Tristan?”

“Hmm?”

“I…Why don’t you want to really marry me?” she asked, her voice so soft it was hardly a whisper.

He closed his own eyes. “I told you I had my once-in-a-lifetime love, remember?”

“Yes, of course I do. But what has that got to do with marriage?”

Tristan turned her in his arms and tucked her up close to his body, trying not to remember how perfectly they’d fit together when making love despite the differences in their heights. Once he’d been buried hilt-deep in her body, he’d felt the perfection of it.

He drew her back into his arms, lowering his head once more, wanting to take her mouth and stop her questions.

But she pulled away. “No more. I want you, but I want answers, too. I don’t understand why you won’t really marry me.”

“It is not you,” he said, the words spilling out. “I will never marry again.”

“Then why pretend to be engaged?”

He pushed his hands through his hair and turned his back on her. He couldn’t look at her and lie. When she’d said she couldn’t lie to him, in the office a few short weeks ago, he’d had no idea what she felt like. Now he did.